In the Port Townsend School of Woodworking’s twelve-week Woodworking Foundation course, you will learn the essential skills, tools and mindsets of the traditional joiner. This is NOT an industrial arts course with a focus on machinery and production processes. Rather, it is a course in PRE-industrial artisanship--the creation of individual works through mostly hand tools and skills..
The Practical Woodworking course at the JD Lohr School of Woodworking is a complete and comprehensive woodworking course held in our shop on the 13-acre farm in southeastern PA. This is total immersion woodworking for ambitious, interested adults. With class size limited to 11 students and 3-4 instructors in each class, all needs of every student are met regardless of experience level. If you are self taught with no formal training as a woodworker, this course will quite literally change the way you work.
Through demonstrations and practice you will learn how to build a Simple Table Top. Square wood using the Jointer, Planer and Table Saw, then learn how to use the Festool Domino Joiner to keep perfect registration during the glue up. This will be a group project where everyone will help build a single table top. The goal is to gain experience and confidence...

Tuition for Practical Woodworking is $1200 for six 8-hour days of instruction and active woodworking. Lumber is provided and costs an additional $85. We provide most tools, students are only required to bring a tape measure, sharpie, pencil, and eye protection (sanders and sandpaper are encouraged if you've got them). Visit our Course Project page to see the table we make!

There are a number of tricks to using a router. First, the bit spins in a clockwise direction, as you look down at the router from the top. This means that when you cut with the router from left to right, the bit will tend to pull the router away from you, and when you route from right to left, the router will pull towards you. So, if you're hooking the edge guide along the near side of the board, route from left to right, and when you're hooking it along the far side of the board, route from right to left. Second, always test the position of your bit on scrap material. Your odds of getting it exactly right by eye are nil. Third, don't cut more than 1/4" deep on a single pass. We want a 3/8" deep grove, so make your first pass at 3/16", or thereabouts, and make a second pass to reach the full depth.
Require the woodworker to be able to read the plans and to transfer images and dimensions from the plan to the lumber. The wood has been planed and all glued panels are completed unless over 14 inches. If panel required is over 14 inches, one glue seam will be required. The woodworker needs to be able to do some cutting, jointing, assembling and finishing. White Kits do not require planing. White Kits supply all of the needed hand-selected dimensioned lumber, but woodworking knowledge and tools will be useful to complete the project successfully.
At the age of 9, Mark’s interest in woodworking began, which led him to begin an apprenticeship with Homestead Heritage Furniture at the age of 17. In his own shop he has built many pieces of furniture from small dovetail boxes to large 10′ round conference tables. Most of his work has been for clients who have ordered custom pieces for their homes and offices. Mark has been building custom furniture for the last 20 years and is now the manager of the Heritage Furniture business. Mark enjoys making hand tools and jigs that can simplify the building process. He has taught children how to shape simple utensils like wooden spoons and cutting boards as well as other larger projects. “Seeing the young grow to maturity in their craft is what I appreciate.”
Stop it. Really. I mean it. Pick a height between your thigh and waist that seems right. You’ll adapt. Don’t worry about your back. You’ll adapt. If you are really uncertain, make it a little taller and then cut down the legs. After a decade or so, your work habits will put a magic number in your head. You’ll have built enough furniture that you will know your number. Until then, pick a number.

Quality is what we do, YOU will do it too, from day one. We will teach you all stages from choosing hand tools, to picking out wood, to developing your drawings, and building a portfolio of work. There are lots of workshop schools, courses, and magazines that are great for showing you an amateur way of getting a good result. An amateur has no excuse for poor work other than lack of understanding, the amateur has all day to get it right, the professional has not. They must do it right, first time, every day.

The last thing is to semi-permanently attach the bolts for the vises. Given the amount of work necessary to get to the bolt heads, once the top is joined, I had intended to tighten them up so they wouldn't spin, and lock them that way with blue Loctite. (That's the strongest non-permanent grade.) That didn't work. What I found was that the bottoms of the countersinks weren't quite flat, and when I tightened the nuts down that far, the ends of the bolts would be pulled far enough out of alignment that the vise bases would no longer fit. In order for the vises to fit over the bolts, I had to leave the nuts loose enough that the bolts had a bit of wiggle - which meant that they were almost loose enough for the bolts to spin. So I put Loctite on the nuts, to keep them from unscrewing, and filled the countersinks with Liquid Nails, in hopes of keeping the bolts from spinning. I considered using epoxy, or a metal-epoxy mix like JB Weld, but I didn't have enough of either on hand. It seems to be working for now, though the real test won't be until I have to take the vises off.

Build on the skills you developed in Woodworking I through the construction of a small cabinet. Woodworking II introduces students to miter and dado joints, hardware installation, and re-sawing on the bandsaw. Please bring a sketch for a small cabinet you would like to build to the first class. NOTE: Students are responsible for their own materials in this class.
Although many hand tool operations are thoroughly covered, this is a machine based woodworking experience. You will find the school finely equipped with four table saws, four jointers, three drill presses, three thickness planers, a wood lathe, full dust collection, bandsaws, jig saws and scroll saws, 5 routers and dozens of router jigs and accessories. There is a heavy focus on the safe and efficient use of the table saw starting with it's basic operation and going into advanced production procedures. We consider the table saw to be an essential machine for efficient, accurate, and safe woodworking.

Dip your toes in the world of woodworking with our week-long courses, and by the end of the week, you'll be swimming. During these intensive, week-long woodworking courses, you will benefit from the guidance of our expert furniture makers, learning the basic principles of woodwork and cabinet making to professional standards. Hone your technique with our classes and create precise, beautiful work with our expertise, equipment and advice at your disposal.

The Classic Workbench is based largely on the famous Plate 11 workbench from Roubo’s “The Art of the Joinery”. We’ve built dozens of these “Roubo” benches over the past decade, helped others build hundreds more and examined extant French benches from the period. We haven’t changed our opinion on this fundamental design. French technical schools of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were outfitted with benches of the exact type. And prior to the 1950’s, you could easily buy a “Classic” workbench from any number of French supply houses. Benchcrafted continues the tradition by offering this excellent workbench, built in Iowa with American hardwoods to the highest standards.
Why would you buy a costly platform bed from Ikea or somewhere else when you can make one yourself at home? Oh yes, you can. A bed is the most common furniture piece used in the house and probably the costliest one. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just make a bed of your own, without having to spend many bucks for buying one? So I am here sharing a great tutorial to help you to build a nice comfy platform bed that you can use anywhere in the house.
When you're working with linseed oil, never -- I mean NEVER -- leave used rags lying around. Hang them up outside, away from anything combustible, and where there's enough air circulation to keep them cool. Or put them in a bucket of water, and hang them outside later. If you're just setting a rag down for the moment, set it out flat, without folds, on something non-flammable. Hanging outside in the breeze, the oil in the rags won't retain heat while they oxidize. For the oil to completely oxidize can take in a couple of days, if it's warm, or more than a week, if it's cold and rainy. When fully oxidized, the oil will be solid and the rags will be stiff. At that point, they're safe, and can be thrown in the trash. Toss them in the trash before that, and you might as well say goodbye to your garage.

Another wooden item that I love very much is a beautiful mobile holder. You can see one in the image below. These things are not only beautiful, but they can comfortably hold any sized mobile and ensure proper safety. Another amazing thing is that they can be built in many shapes and sizes, as and how you need it. You can see some more examples at the source below

Those bums even have a stipulation that you can't connect any utilities to a shed. My plan is to adhere to the letter of the law if not the spirit. I plan to run a buried 20 amp power line out to the shed (this will be done professionally and properly according to whatever is required by the law), but it will require a manual connection to a junction box on the outside of my house to complete the circuit. That way, I can argue that the electrical connection is only temporary and is little more than a safe and buried version of an extension cord.